Magic: The Gathering Bans Fury, Up The Beanstalk, Karn, And More

Magic: The Gathering has finally put Rakdos Scam to an end with its latest ban for the Modern format, doing away with the much-criticized Fury.

Alongside Fury, we’ve also seen a number of other bans for both Modern and Pioneer, including cards from the recent sets Wilds of Eldraine and The Lost Caverns Of Ixalan.

Fury is by far the biggest ban in the December 4 Banned and Restricted Announcement, helping dismantle the ever-oppressive black/red Rakdos Scam archetype.

Fury can be played for free if you exile a red card, but will sacrifice itself the second it enters the battlefield. If you can respond to that with a reanimation tool like Malakir Rebirth or Feign Death, you can effectively keep Fury in play and have a 3/3 with double strike on the first turn for just one mana and one red card.

Full Ban List:

Banned In Modern

• Fury
• Up The Beanstalk

Banned In Pioneer And Explorer

• Geological Appraiser
• Karn, The Great Creator

Unbanned In Pioneer

• Smuggler's Copter

Banned In Pauper

• Monastery Swiftspear

Fury isn’t the only card with an evoke cost like this that’s been causing problems, as Grief is also a big part of Rakdos Scam. However, with Fury causing more problems, it made sense for Wizards to ban that and see how the format adjusts instead of completely nuking the deck from orbit.

Talking about the decision to ban Fury, Wizards of the Coast said it believes the ban will "widen the format, allowing players to explore additional strategies". Notably, it also argued the ban of Fury will reduce how often we see other problematic cards like Grief and Orcish Bowmasters, keeping them legal in Modern for now.

Before these bans, Rakdos Scam was sitting at an overwhelming 20 percent of the metagame, which is absurdly more than the seven to ten percent other top decks tend to see.

Modern will also be banning a card from Wilds of Eldraine, Up The Beanstalk. Up The Beanstalk is a fantastic card for green, rewarding you for doing what green does best - casting big spells - with yet more card draw.

A particular problem with Up The Beanstalk is that it doesn't care about how much you actually paid for a spell, meaning evoke spells, or any other way to cheat the cost, often triggers it cheaply or for entirely free. It was providing far too much value, leading to the ban.

Meanwhile, in Pioneer, we’ve also seen a number of changes, mostly hitting the recently-dominant Discover Combo decks that use cards from The Lost Caverns of Ixalan to cast big spells for free very quickly. To counter this, Geological Appraisal has been banned, as it allowed you to combo into Trumpeting Carnosaur and Quintorius Kand as early as turn three.

The other big ban for Pioneer is Karn, The Great Creator. This colourless Planeswalker is a popular piece in the ever-present Mono-Green Nykthos deck, thanks to its ability to "find threats and solutions to whatever the deck encounters". Nykthos decks are likely to still be powerful despite this, but Karn was making them overly opressive and unfun, rather than just strong.

Cards banned in Pioneer are also banned in Magic: The Gathering Arena's Explorer format.

Pioneer did see one unbanning, though, with Smuggler's Copter creeping its way back. Though specific play patterns weren't outlined by Wizards, it argued the rising power level of Pioneer since its banning in 2018 means it won't too warping to reintroduce to the format.

Finally, the common-only format Pauper got one ban in the massively popular (and heavily reprinted) Monastery Swiftspear. Swiftspear has been one of Pauper's best cards since its first common printing in Double Masters 2022. For just one mana it gave red Burn decks too much of an aggressive powerhouse, rewarding you for playing cheap burn spells with an even bigger swinging creature.

All of these bans come into immediate affect on paper and MTG Online, with the Arena ban coming in tomorrow's update instead. Now is a great time to craft Karn and Geological Appraiser in Arena, as you'll be refunded the wildcards when the ban comes into effect.

The next ban window will be "around March 11", a few weeks after the launch of Murders at Karlov Manor.

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